Tickle Me Downunder

[PeterL]

United States of Kingdom 20 XII 2001

But seriously though folks....... A survey is published here today which pretends to be a league table of each nations sense of humour. It's all bollocks of course. As is was commissioned here in the US of K I'll leave you to ponder who came out top and just leave it at that.

But I got to thinking..(quickly nurse..the screens!) As a group our Ozzie forumites contribute as much wit as they do wisdom, of which they contribute a very considerable amount. There is a definite and identifiably Ozzie sense of of humour. So where are all the Ozzie comics?

Here in the United States of Kingdom we've heard of two: Barry Humphreys, for whom the word genius is barely adequate, and Bob Down, a one trick pony. So from whence springs this ready Ozzie wit?

[Darryl]

Here in the United States of Kingdom we've heard of two: Barry Humphreys, for whom the word genius is barely adequate, and Bob Down, a one trick pony. So from whence springs this ready Ozzie wit?

Peter,

It is a particular brand of humour born of adversity. I was surprised (but probably shouldn't have been) whilst travelling in Ireland, at how similar their humour is.

I heard Fr Dougal (can't recall his name) interviewed the other day and he said he didn't like his parents..but kept in touch, after all, you never know when you could need a bone marrow transplant. That is could just as easily been said by an Australian.

But it doesn't have quite that sharp edge that we have. It is easy to "shock" other people with what would be a tame joke here. The original trick of shaking the dead hand hanging out of the trench wall was, I believe, an Aussie thing from Gallipoli, which spread.

What other group would use "b__tard" as a term of endearment almost universally whilst retaining "mongrel" as the real insult. Mongrel b__tard is, of course, strictly insult.

It also comes from a healthy disrespect for most authority and a willingness to challenge that authority without resorting to direct violence. Talking the p_ss is a national passtime.

The hard environment, a good portion of Irish ancestry, a fairly unsophisticated cultural development and such great natural targets as your good selves constantly at hand....what else could have happened.

AND we bear no prejudice to our fellow Aussies even if most of them are the strange kind from the Non-Western States.
(well, except Victorians, everybody hates them*G*) So we feel free to TTP without fear of serious injury.

regards

Darryl

[Mark_Miller]

What I want to know is
why are there so many Canadian comedians ?
Seems wildly out of proportion relative to overall population.

My personal fave - John Candy
What a shame he died so young :-[


Mark

[mike_baram]

Any group that has to work its way up economically, or has to face oppression on its way to acceptance, develops a strange, and often self-deprecating, sense of humor to help smooth the passage. After all, laughter is a stress reliever.
If you think the Aussie sense of humor is special, try to find an anthology of Jewish humor. That facet of national identity has been so finely honed that it's permeated American society; look at the source of most of our great comedians, from the Marx Brothers to Rodney Dangerfield and Jerry Seinfeld.
(Example - no charge for this one, folks:
Hitler was worried about his future, and consulted a fortune teller about when he would die.
The fortune teller told him, "You will die on a Jewish holiday."
Hitler worriedly asked him which Jewish holiday would it be.
The fortune teller responded, "Any day you die will be a Jewish holiday.")

*Note - Hitler served in the German army in WWI. I have fullfilled the requirement for obligatory WWI content.

What I want to know is
why are there so many Canadian comedians ?
Seems wildly out of proportion relative to overall population.

Mark, the state of our country...well you either laugh or cry.

It is better to go down Laughing.

Peter,

>So from whence springs this ready Ozzie wit?

Get ready for a cammo way overboard opinion. Having lived in Australia and the US, I have found Australians to be far more socially aggressive than Americans. In fact when I first came I was surprised how soft American society was and actually worried that I would become used to it and be too soft when I was back in Australia again. Americans divide the world into two parts, Americans and everyone else. American society is remarkably inclusive, part of the reason I have assimilated with ease. Australia is socially exclusive, predomaintantly because of the mateship paradigm. It takes alot of work to pass the rigorous mateship test. Anyone who has done blue collar work in Australia knows that.

Australian society is very exclusive, there are your mates, your family, the wirdos down the street, the proddo's across the road, the bloody tykes up the hill, the westies across the way, the bludgers in no.22 and that nutcase that plays the bag pipes all the time. There is the westies, the inner-citiy, the north0shore wankers, the mountain men, the Albanites(hillbillies), the waxheads, the highway waxheads(Liverpool) and so on, and that is just Sydney, then there is the bloody Queenslanders or cane toads, the Victorians .,....... the weirdo crow eaters, the quantly backward sandgropers, and that is the states, then there is the international categorizations and divisions.

Because there is the continiual social aggression, a large part of defending the domain of mateship and not letting others pass it until they have passed the mateship tests, alot of potentially physical aggression is deflected by wit. Especially at a young age and sort of sticks.

It took the highly stressfull situation of 70,000 New Yorkers and New Jersians in Giants stadium for me to see the kind of social aggression that an unlubricated Australian pub can produce with 50 people in it.

Americans are aggressive in business though, I am way out of my depth there, Australian society doesnt prepare you for that :)

>So where are all the Ozzie comics?

There are millions of them in pubs across Australia, but none will get up on stage, they perform only for small groups of people they trust, namely their mates :)

Oddly enough in "They're a Weird Mob" nino describes the Australian lack of ability for public speaking. He claims Australians when asked ot give an opinion on something, will let fly with an economy of words on the subject leaving no doubt as to the meaning, and the wrap it with a punchline. Ask the same person to repeat the same thing for a group of listeners, and the same person will stutter, umm and ahh, go red and flounder on the public stage. Describes my public speaking abilities!



cam

There was a man called Paul Hogan who used to be a good comedian. Just wipe Crocodile Dundee 2&3 from the memory.
He used to have a very funny show on Australian tv in the early 80's.

Australia does have some good comedians, but unfortunately this has not been transferred very well to television and the shows that are made usually bomb.

The exception being 'The Late Show' which was made up of a group called 'The D Generation' but I doubt this was shown outside of Australia.

[Vin]

Query your premise, Peter. I don’t think the Australian contributors are one bit funny. There are a few real comedians contributing pretty regularly, though. Ah, Dougal, you can have a bit of a laugh.


Vin

[Ginger.]

Have I missed something.???
We are talking about the Nation that gave the world Rolf Harris,Skippy and Harold Bishop aren't we.???
Come to think about it,it was their Prime Minister that burst into floods of tears on Worldwide TV after getting caught doing naughtiness.???
Same bloke that tried to grope the Queen's arse during a State visit.:

[mike_baram]

Any nation that can produce a Dame Edna is worth preserving.